Doggone Zombies

DOGHOUSE-A bunch of English gobs take their friend to a remote village so he'll forget about his divorce. Unfortunately for them (and us) the town is occupied by man hating, flesh eating women due to some kind of virus (Project: Cathouse).

This SHAWN OF THE DEAD/DEAD ALIVE inspired gore comedy features a variety of female zombies (a hairdresser, old lady, bride, butcher, dominatrix, etc.) but much of the heavy accented English dialogue was lost on me. At one point three of them (they meet an army sgt. at the village) dress in drag to evade the zombies. Things get more serious and deadly when the flesh eaters mutate. The weirdest death involves a fat dead housewife squashing her victim.

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Aptly Titled

THE LOSERS-2010-You know if you make a movie and call it The Losers it better be good otherwise people will be making stupid cracks like "Well at least it lives up to it's name" or "the real losers are the audience".

Unfortunately this derivative action nonsense lives up to those lines and more.

A US Special Forces group thought to be killed in the Bolivian Jungle hides out somewhere plotting revenge against a guy named Max (Jason Patric) who set them up. But of course the evil empire of The United States is also to blame. The idiotic acting and routine direction don't help things in this cliché ridden story.

Jeffery Dean Morgan, Zoe Saladana (Uhura in the new STAR TREK), Chris Evans (much better in CAPTAIN AMERICA) star. It's based on a comic from DC's Vertigo line. Director Sylvain White had made STOMP THE YARD.

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PS-I didn't look it up yet but I think DC once published an Army comic called THE LOSERS!

The Legend

RIKIDOZAN: A HERO EXTRAORDINARY-2004-If you don't know anything about Japanese professional wrestling you might still enjoy this Korean made biographical drama about The Rising Son's greatest grappler.

Kyung-gu Sol stars as Kim who comes from Korea to study Sumo wrestling in Japan soon after the end of WW2. Although he becomes Sumo he's not allowed to participate because he's Korean. After beating up a bouncer he meets actor Harold Sakata (played by real pro wrestler Kenji "The Great Muta" Muto) who beats him up and then introduces him into the world of pro wrestling. He changes his name and goes to America to make a name for himself. He makes pro wrestling a national past time in Japan after making a speech about standing up to "the big and bad white man". Later he helps Japan "regain it's lost pride" and get revenge on America by trouncing a foreign tag team but he dies from a stab wound he receives in a fight. (Some say he was killed by The Yakusa but this film seems to say he was just paranoid)

His main promoter Mr. Kanno is played by Tatsuya Fugi (from IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES). The story leaves out a lot of details especially regarding his wrestling career. It is true that he gave the post-Japanese population a much needed moral "shot in the arm" but pro-wrestling was (and still is) a choreographed sport so even though Rikidozan was standing up to "the American bullies", it was these very same bullies who had agreed to playing arrogant, cheating Westerners. Still his impact on pro-wrestling jn Japan can't be denied.

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Grizzly (not Adams)

GRIZZLY-1976-A 2000 lb. killer grizzly bear preys on campers in a state park. The ranger in charge (Christopher George) must find the murderous hirsute mammal. He also has to contend with drunken hunters, an idiot park supervisor and his would girlfriend photographer (Joan McCall who later wrote a sequel GRIZZLY II: THE CONCERT). A bear expert (Richard Jaeckel) says it's a hold over from the prehistoric era. Andrew Prine is a helicopter operator. It's rather gory for the time but sometimes the actors talk to softly.

This "Jaws on land" horror film (which was a big hit) was made by director William Girdler who made only 9 films in his brief career. He was killed in a helicopter accident at age 30 in 1978. He re-teamed with George the next year to make DAY OF THE ANIMALS.

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Tsuguri is Dangerous...and Smart....

THE STREETFIGHTER'S LAST REVENGE-1974-Sonny Chiba returns as Terry Tsuguri, in his third "street fighter" film. The plot concerns a formula for making heroin. He battles a lot of pushers over two cassette tapes. A crooked cop gets in the way and Terry (who's dubbed voice sounds like George Takei) beats up people while trying to regain one of the tapes. Reiko Ike (who has a brief topless scene) and Etsuko Shihomi (who was later in the "sister street fighter series) are the female leads. Masafumi Suzuki returns as Terry's former mentor.

Director Shigehiro Ozawa had made the previous 2 Streetfighter movies and later made SISTER STREETFIGHTER (with Shihomi).

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It's Hard to Kill a Horse With a Flute".

CIRCLE OF IRON-1978-A fighter named Cord (Jeff Cooper) fights in a weird tournament where the winner gets a chance to find "the book of enlightenment" held by someone named Zetan. He wins but is expelled for cheating by the games master (Roddy McDowall in strange headgear). He sets out to find the book anyway and helps a philosophy spouting blind flute player (David Carradine, similar to his Caine KUNG-FU character) who beats up three attackers in alley.

To find the book Cord must go through several trials. In the first he battles the leader (Carradine again) of a tribe of monkey men. Then in the film's most amusing scene he meets "man in oil" (Eli Wallach), a doctor who sits in a tub of oil to destroy his sexual urges. Cord then meets a barbarian leader Changsha (Carradine once more) who fights pro wrestler Earl Maynard and eventually provides Cord with his next trial. There he also meets Tara (Erica Greer) who tries to make Cord break his vow of chastity and gets crucified instead. In a dream he confronts Death (Carradine in his fourth role). Then he and the blind flute player have a few adventures. At the end Cord does meet Zetan (Christopher Lee) and finds out the secret of the book.

Carradine is great in his multiple roles (especially the blind flute player saying things like: "A fool is the twin of the wise".) Antony De Longis is Morthond.

The Zen Buddhism inspired story was developed by Bruce Lee, James Coburn and Stirling Silliphant (who co-wrote the screenplay) as a vehicle for Lee (who died in 1973 ). Despite this it does seem influenced by the KUNG-FU TV show. Silliphant was a prolific TV writer who also penned the original CHILDREN OF THE DAMMED, THE SWARM and several Irwin Allen disaster movies.

Director Richard Moore was a cinema photographer on films like WILD IN THE STREETS, MYRA BRECKENRIDGE and (later) ANNIE. CIRCLE is his only film as director. Co-scripter Stanley Mann also wrote DAMIEN: OMEN 2 and METEOR. It takes place in the Far East but was filmed in Israel.

"A fish saved my life once. I ate it".

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Stop Using The Dead To Make Bad Movies!

FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: OUTBREAK ON A PLANE- 2007-Cliché ridden idiocy mostly takes place on a plane where a dead female scientist has been brought back to life by some stupid scientists. She infects some passengers. They include the 3 stupid scientists responsible for the nonsense (they created some kind of virus), a Tiger Woods clone, a cop and his prisoner, a nun and other cretins. It sort of seems like a comedic takeoff but there's no comedy. The gory SFX are ok but most of the acting is pretty bad and things really get ridiculous in the climax. The director Scott Thomas produced the '90's X-MEN animated series. There's some TV actors in it and Dale Midkiff, Brian Thompson, Richard Tyson and Kenneth J. O'Connor.